


The Fairest Flowers O’th’ Season

by einsKai



Category: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Chinese translation now available, Confessions, Crushes, Cuddling & Snuggling, First Kiss, Flower Shop Worker!Tenn, Flowers, GakuTenn Jesus Kai breaking the bread once again, Getting Together, Iori and Tsumugi are only mentioned but, Language of Flowers, Love at First Sight, M/M, Mention of Poetry, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Poet!Gaku, Unrequited Love, because I can't write poetry, book cafe owner!Iori, but it's in there, written for GakuTenn day 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 03:38:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15621726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/einsKai/pseuds/einsKai
Summary: Tenn could hear his heartbeat in his chest, hurried and breathless. In love.He was screwed.





	The Fairest Flowers O’th’ Season

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Shakespeare's Winter's Tale (I bought a book with Shakespeare quotations today, so I wanted to try them xD)
> 
> This was written in like  
> four hours or something.  
> Totally not because I forgot GakuTenn day was a thing. No no.
> 
> Anyway, have fun reading!
> 
> Edit, 27/09/18: There's a [Chinese translation](https://media.weibo.cn/article?id=2309404277368670811542&jumpfrom=weibocom) by [Asami960521](https://twitter.com/Asami960521?s=09) on Twitter! If you speak Chinese check them out and leave some love, I'm sure a lot of work went into the translation!

The bell at the door chimed, to signal a customer arriving.

“Welcome to ‘The Fairest Flowers O’th’ Season’!”, came the automated greeting Tenn had worked on long and hard to perfect.

A tall man with slightly curly silver hair stood in the entrance of the flower shop and looked around, as if he didn’t exactly know what he was doing here. When he spotted Tenn his face lit up and he came walking towards him.

“Excuse me”, the man said and Tenn looked up into his face. When their eyes met Tenn felt as if for a moment the world stopped. Frozen in time as he was, Tenn took in every detail about the man. His simple yet elegant clothes, his beautiful features, his hair and eyes…

Then the moment was over, and Tenn could hear his heartbeat in his chest, hurried and breathless. In love.  
Upon the realisation his cheeks heated up with the force of his blush.

So this is love at first sight, Tenn thought. He had never understood what everyone meant when they talked about crushes, but now he had an idea about how it felt.

“What can I help you with?”, he said and tried to calm his heart that was pounding against his ribcage like a trapped bird, trying to escape its prison.

“I would like to purchase a bouquet”, the man said, “And to have it made of course.”

“Let’s hear about that bouquet then”, Tenn said.

“Here, I have it written down”, the man said, handing Tenn a slip of paper with tiny handwriting on it. When Tenn took the paper their fingers brushed and Tenn felt goosebumps crawl up his arm. What a stupid physical reaction, he was lucky that he was wearing long sleeves with his work clothes, so the man couldn’t see it.

“White carnations? This is for a loved one then?”, Tenn said.

“Yes, it’s for a date”, Gaku said, “As a gift.”

“I see”, Tenn said. Of course a beautiful man like this would have someone already. No way that there would be someone this perfect _and_ single available…

“I think we have all of those flowers here”, he said, “When do you need the bouquet? I could make it for you right now.”

“I only need it in a few days!”, the man said, “But it would be great if I could pre-order it.”

“Of course”, Tenn said and walked behind the counter to pull an order sheet from the stack he kept in one of the drawers.

“Your name, please?”

“Yaotome Gaku.”

The name sounded familiar, and Tenn looked over to a stack of books he kept on a chair, to keep himself busy while the shop was empty.

“Interesting”, he said, while writing the flowers from the slip down on the order sheet, “You have the same first name as that poet, Yamamura Gaku.”

“I hear that quite often”, Gaku laughed, “That’s not me though.”

“Thought so”, Tenn said, “It’s just a first name after all. Good, now tell me the exact day you will be here to pick the bouquet up, preferably with a time.”

“I’d like it on Saturday. Can I pick it up at 2pm?”

“That fits with our closing hours on Saturday, yes”, Tenn said and noted it down, “So, Yaotome Gaku is going to come pick up a bouquet of white carnations on Saturday at 2pm… anything else?”

“That would be it, thank you.”

“You’re welcome. You may pay on Saturday.”

“Great!”, Gaku said, “See you then!”

He turned around to leave, the bell chimed again, and with the closing door Tenn’s heart calmed down again, his breathing normalizing again.

He had it bad.

 

Saturday came far too quickly, and Tenn was just fixing up the bouquet, a beautiful combination of white and green, _undying devotion_ , someone very loved would get this bouquet, when Gaku came in again.  
Tenn had tried his best to supress his jealousy when making the bouquet, and instead tried to fill it with the feelings he would feel when receiving a bouquet like this from Gaku. It was difficult, but Tenn was a professional, so he managed. A bouquet made with feelings like jealousy could never convey the feelings his costumer wanted for the flowers.

The bell chimed and when Tenn looked up he saw Yaotome Gaku walking into his flower shop again. Immediately his heartbeat sped up, the useless thing.

Silently telling his traitorous heart to shut _up_ , he greeted the man, and gestured towards the bouquet he was finishing at the moment. “I am adding finishing touches right now. Would you like a specific colour for the ribbon? Perhaps for it to match clothes, or hair?”

“Hello”, Yaotome Gaku greeted him, “Good question… if I knew what she is wearing right now I could match that. Give me a minute.”

Tenn added some more greens to the carnations, while hearing the other type on his phone.

“Hi, yeah, I know we’re seeing each other in a minute-“, Gaku said into the phone, “No, I’m just calling to ask which colours you’re wearing.”

What a weird person, Tenn thought, asking his date for the colour of their clothes before meeting with them.

“Got it”, Gaku said on the phone, “Love you too. See you in a few!”

Tenn raised his eyebrows questioningly, and Gaku smiled.

“She’s wearing some light pink, so I’d say we make the ribbon pink too”, he said.

“Very well”, Tenn said, and pulled a pink ribbon from the drawer, “Then we are finished here.”

He gave the bouquet that had turned out to be quite large to Gaku and was handed the money in return. When he opened the drawer to hand out the change, Gaku told him to keep it.

“Thank you for your good service!”, he said on his way out.

“We hope to see you again”, Tenn said, because for once he really did want to see one of his costumers again. He knew that the chances of actually having Gaku as a costumer again were slim, but he could hope.

 

Nobody else came in the hour left to closing the shop, so he had buried himself in the latest poem collection by Yamamura Gaku. Even though he would never admit it out loud, he admired the eloquent and flowery language used to describe plants, people, clouds and the stars, bridges, parks and traffic…  
Yamamura-sensei understood his craft, pulling Tenn in and capturing the magic of single moments, threaded this very magic through his words like a silver thread in a carpet of stories – except that he wrote poems.

He closed the small flower shop on a street corner and made his way towards the mall, where his favourite book café was located.  
It was called ‘Silentium’, and it gave Tenn comfortable seats, delicious hot and cold beverages and thousands of books to read.

The owner, a young man with blue hair, was always polite but straightforward. Tenn liked him, and without anyone’s doing a silent, mutual appreciation between them, the owner and the regular, had started.

Tenn always spent his Saturday afternoons at the book café. Because he was the owner and only worker in his flower shop, he didn’t have lots of free time, but he made sure that he had at least Saturday afternoon and Sunday off whenever it was possible. Sundays were spent with friends, or alone, whatever he felt like, and Saturdays were spent reading at ‘Silentium’.

At first he took the newest volume of a weekly poetry magazine from the shelf, to see what poem of Yamamura Gaku’s was featured this week.

He was a little disappointed when it was an older poem that he knew already. Sometimes the magazine would feature newer, unpublished works of him, that was when Tenn was really happy, to be able to read the poems before it was published in a book.

After reading through the poetry of the week he went to pick up the fantasy novel he had been reading previously, a book in three parts, all set in the same world. Part one, that he had finished last week, was about a young assassin who was rescued from his quite unfortunate fate by two knights, one human and one centaur, and afterwards formed a friendship with them. The next story he would be reading was the tragedy of a weredog and a half-elf and the last part was the romance and adventure of a human potion seller and a genie.

Halfway through the second story, he took a break and got something to drink.

While he was waiting for his drink to be finished, he looked out of the window, only to see a familiar face.

Yaotome Gaku was walking through the mall, together with a petite blonde girl. They were talking and smiling, she was laughing at the moment, and the look in Gaku’s eyes spoke of fondness.

Jealousy crept up Tenn’s neck and he felt it strangling him, keeping him from breathing.

The lack of a bouquet and the colour pink in the girl’s clothes only confused him for a moment, until his brain decided that his jealousy was more important than small details.

Quickly he looked away from his crush – whom he barely knew – and turned towards his coffee, which was already standing in front of him, slowly getting cold.

He would not think about Gaku again, Tenn decided, he had no chance with him anyway and his crush would only bring him pain. It was not like he would see Gaku ever again.

With these thoughts he buried his nose in his book again and disappeared in the fantasy world for the rest of the day.

 

Unfortunately for him it took only about eleven days until he saw Gaku again – not that he had counted.

Again, Gaku had turned up in his flower shop in the middle of the day. Today he wasn’t wearing fancy clothes like he had been on the previous occasions Tenn had seen him, but a casual t-shirt and old, washed-out jeans. He still looked too good to be legal, but Tenn chose to ignore it. He didn’t have a crush on anyone, definitely not Yaotome Gaku, who had a girlfriend.

“I came to get another bouquet”, he said, “Last time was really great by the way, she loved it!”

“That is very good”, Tenn said and smiled, “I’m glad I could make someone happy with my work.”

“Really good work~”, Gaku said and smiled.

Tenn did _not_ blush at the compliment and the smile, because he did _not_ have a crush on Yaotome Gaku.

“So, your order?”, he asked, to distract himself from the heat in his ears and cheeks.

“This time I’d like to go with only a few flowers. The last bouquet was beautiful and looked amazing in a vase, but to carry it around it wouldn’t have been difficult. So I want about five red tulips with some greens, to make it more portable.”

“Got it”, Tenn said it, “When do you want them?”

“Oh”, Gaku said, “Right now actually, you don’t have to take it down.”

He was going on a date in those clothes?, Tenn questioned silently, Even though he hadn’t worn things like that when he had seen him with that girl…

“Alright”, Tenn said and walked towards the vase with the tulips, “Red tulips, huh? Must be a wonderful woman you’re buying these flowers for.”

“She’s the best. Most beautiful woman to ever walk the earth”, Gaku answered absentmindedly, because he was studying Tenn’s books.

“You really like that author you talked about the first time I came to visit”, he observed, “That Yamamura Gaku.”

“I like his poems, that’s all”, Tenn said, focusing on his work, “He has an amazing way with words. I feel like all the poems are about something very specific, not the actual thing he is describing, but the _feeling_ of looking at it, tasting it, hearing it... his poems are the experience, not a description.”

“That is a beautiful way of putting it…”

Tenn didn’t answer until he finished. “Here we are, red tulips.”

“Wonderful”, Gaku said, _winked_ , and handed him money again, “Keep the change, see you~”

With a chime the door fell shut again and left Tenn alone with the memory of that wink, breathless and with his heart beating faster than when he had been late for school in third grade and decided to run the whole way instead of waiting for the next bus.

He really was screwed.

 

Two weeks after the red tulips a new poem of Yamamura Gaku had been in Poetry Weekly.

He described a delicate flower, strong and independent, growing like it desired. Light pink petals, beautiful like none other he had seen before. Yamamura Gaku loved this flower dearly, but the love had a bittersweet feeling to it.

Tenn couldn’t help but feel like the poem wasn’t about a flower at all, but he couldn’t place it, and gave up on thinking about it. It wasn’t like there would be any room for interpretation from the life of the poet – Yamamura Gaku was a pseudonym after all, not his real name. Nobody even knew what he looked like, or if he was actually a ‘he’ at all – Yamamura Gaku could be a woman too.

 

Over the next months Gaku came in to buy flowers more often, at least once a week, every time buying flowers with different variations of meanings related to love. Tenn chatted with him, about the weather, about poems, about flowers and their meaning… That really helped make his crush go away!

Now he didn’t have a simple crush anymore, no – he was outright in love with Yaotome Gaku.

 

One afternoon about two months after they had met, Tenn was just giving an old lady an arrangement of white roses for her spouses grave, the door chimed again, and Gaku was standing in the doorway. He was soaked to the bone, it had started pouring about ten minutes ago, and apparently he had been surprised by the rain.

Tenn only shot him a short look, before concentrating on the customer in front of him again, handing out change and wishing her a lovely day.

When she had left, he turned the ‘open’ sign around to ‘closed’ and locked the door.

“Come”, he said, “You’ll catch a cold.”

He gestured for Gaku to follow him up the stairs that were labelled ‘private’, leading up into his apartment.

It wasn’t anything special, just a two and a half room apartment, but for Tenn it was enough, he spent most of his time down with his flowers anyway.

He led Gaku, who looked surprised that Tenn cared about his health and still hadn’t said anything, to his bathroom, where he handed him a towel.

“I doubt that any of my clothes fit you”, he said, “But I can throw yours into the dryer and give you a blanket for the time being. You should take a shower too, and I’ll make you tea-”

“Tenn”, Gaku said, when had they become close enough to use each other’s first names again?, “Take a breath. I’m not dying.”

“You’re drenched. Why didn’t you take an umbrella with you? The weather forecast said it would be raining today.”

Gaku shrugged, unfortunately directing Tenn’s attention towards Gaku’s shirt that was sticking to his body way too tightly, “I forgot.”

Tenn sighed, exasperated, “I’m getting that blanket. Make sure to warm up in the shower.”

 

“Thank you”, Gaku mumbled into his tea a few minutes later, his face the only thing that was still visible in a mountain of blankets and pillows that Tenn had forced on him, “You’re like a mother hen, it’s kind of cute.”

“I’m a lot of things, but I’m not… cute”, he felt that traitorous blush again, “It’s just so that I don’t want to see you sick, you know? We’re friends, right?”

A weak laugh from Gaku. “Sure, sure, if you want us to be… Reminds me, I have something for you. It’s in the bag in the bathroom, I left it there.”

“You have something for me? Why?”

“You’ll see, bring it here. I can’t do it, because you’re not allowing me to get out under this ton of blankets.”

Tenn got up and brought the gift-bag from the bathroom. It was long and pretty heavy for a small gift bag, but he brought it to Gaku, who gestured for him to open it.

The yellow petals of a daffodil greeted him.

“A daffodil?” _chivalry, joy, happiness, rebirth, new beginnings, eternal life… unrequited love._

Tenn sighed. “So you found me out?”, he asked, searching for eye contact, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to get you to break up with your girlfriend or anything-“

“Wait a minute, slow down”, Gaku said, “This wasn’t… What do you mean _you got found out_ , this is supposed to be _me_ confessing my unrequited love for _you_!”

“But you have a girlfriend?”, Tenn was confused, “I saw you two walking together in the mall, did you break up?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend”, Gaku said, just as confused, “…by the mall, huh? Did you by any chance see a blonde girl?”

“Yes, she was blonde and very pretty, walking next to you, talking, smiling, laughing. I thought, with you buying flowers for someone on the same day that she must have been your date.”

“No way!”, Gaku laughed, “That’s Tsumugi and I do love her, but she’s like a little sister to me. We’re childhood friends because our parents were friends, at least my mom is with her dad.”

“Oh”, Tenn said, the misunderstanding slowly sinking in, “So, no girlfriend… but for whom were the flowers then?”

“My mom. She recently started dating again, for the first time after the divorce, and she really loves her new girlfriend. So she’s trying to impress her with flowers, but because she’s embarrassed and doesn’t know a lot about the language of flowers, she sent me.”

“So with the most beautiful woman you meant…?”

“My mother, yes. That was really misleading, wasn’t it?”

Tenn breathed in deeply. “So what you’re saying is that you don’t have a girlfriend and just confessed your love to me?”

“And if I recall it correctly, you said you were in love with me too~”, Gaku teased.

“Shut up”, Tenn grumbled, “I never said it like that, I just-“

“It’s okay”, Gaku said, “I still love you, even if your confession wasn’t as romantic as it could have been.”

Tenn took a step forward, closing the last distance that was left between him and Gaku, they had been standing very closely in Tenn’s small living room, Gaku sitting on the couch and Tenn standing in front of him.

“Thank you for the daffodil”, Tenn said and leaned in to kiss Gaku.

Their lips met and Tenn felt Gaku grin into the kiss, not that he himself was better, smiling happily like an idiot. Tenn moved to sit in Gaku’s lap, his hands on his shoulders, so he didn’t fall off the couch. One of Gaku’s hands found their way into Tenn’s hair, combing through the shorter hairs on the back of his head.

Releasing the kiss Tenn rested his head in the crook of Gaku’s neck. The hand caressing his hair didn’t stop, and Tenn hummed contently.

“I should have written about a cat instead of a flower”, Gaku said and Tenn could feel his laughter through the shaking of his body.

“What?”, he asked, not really getting the joke.

“Look into the gift bag again”, Gaku said, “There’s something else in it.”

Only begrudgingly Tenn let go of Gaku and turned around to grab the bag again. It was still more heavy than it looked, and Tenn reached into it, to pull a book from the depths of the bag.

“This is… the newest poem collection of Yamamura Gaku”, he marvelled, “How did you get this?”

“Yamamura is my mother’s maiden name. Yaotome is my father’s”, Gaku said, “I thought, if I have to ruin our friendship like this, you should have at least something special, to remember me by. Like the only signed copy of one of my books.”

Tenn stared at Gaku, mouth hanging open in disbelief.

“You’re trying to tell me that I’m in love with my favourite author, and that he is also in love with me, and”, the realisation came, later than he would have liked it to come, but there was a lot to take in at the moment, “That poem was about _me_?! You wrote a poem like that about _me_? That’s how you feel about me?”

Gaku nodded, and Tenn couldn’t help but throw his arms around Gaku’s neck and hug him.

“God”, he sobbed dryly, no actual tears coming out, but he felt close to crying, “This is the best day of my life. I love you Gaku, thank you so much, I don’t know how to-“

Arms closing around his waist and pulling him closer to the other shut him up.

“You don’t need to”, Gaku said, and with that both of them grew silent, just enjoying the quiet moment.

A beeping noise signalled the dryer finishing his job, but Tenn didn’t move from their embrace.

“Hey Gaku”, he said, “I already closed the shop, so I can do whatever I want today.”

“And what do you want?”

“You getting dressed, ordering takeout and a movie.”

“Sounds good to me”, Gaku said, “That kind of date doesn’t require me to go to another flower shop to surprise you with flowers.”

“You’re such an idiot”, Tenn said, and playfully pushed Gaku, without actually moving him, “And now get dressed while I order takeout. Is pizza okay?”

“Of course~”, Gaku said and Tenn got up to let Gaku get his clothes.

 

A few hours later, two empty pizza boxes and two movies later, Tenn sighed contently, cuddled against Gaku’s side and sleepy from both the warm food in his stomach, the warmth around him and the movies that weren’t the best he had ever seen.

“You really are like a cat”, Gaku mumbled, silently, as to not disturb the atmosphere.

“Maybe… Are you already writing the next poem about me, Yamamura Gaku?”

“Possibly. I should make my next book one about kittens then, because I’m sure you will give me loooots of inspiration~”

“Shut up”, Tenn yawned, “Even if they’re about me, I will be first in line to buy them.”

Silence, only muffled voices from the TV where a news show was on, the volume on one of the lowest possible settings.

“I really love you”, Gaku said then.

“I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> you want to know more about the book Tenn is reading? Check out [Lavellan To Cake](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15200090), [Travels to Blue Roses](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15765066/chapters/36669636) and future stories of the Journeys to Fantasia series. 
> 
> If you enjoyed consider leaving a comment :D
> 
> Have a nice day!
> 
> \- Kai


End file.
